Bob Geldof insists he is not running for Irish presidency
Bob Geldof has stressed that he will not be running for the Irish presidency after previously making a throwaway comment on the subject.
The Boomtown Rats frontman recently discussed the role with Taoiseach Micheál Martin. However, Geldof has since explained that the Irish premier had already identified another candidate as his preferred choice.
Geldof was asked by Sky News on September 16th if Geldof had ruled himself out of the position. The musician insisted he “would never walk myself in.”
He continued, “What happened was we played at one of the big festivals in Ireland and coming off stage, somebody said, ‘Are you going to make a run for the President?’ But they ask that of everybody in Ireland, that’s the first thing – because anyone can (make a run), which is good. And I said, ‘Well, it’s 50 years of the (Boomtown) Rats, 40 years of Band Aid, yeah, I’d like to do something new, interesting and useful’. And that set the hares running.”
This set the ball in motion. Geldof added, “So then people who are fairly high-powered in Ireland rang me and said, ‘Are you serious?’ I said ‘No’. I said, ‘Literally, I have no time’. I knew about the promo for the album, which is like tomorrow it’s wall to wall, and for the rest of the week, then I’ll go on tour. So you wouldn’t have had time.”
Despite his admission, fans were still keen for Geldof to dabble in politics. He continued, “But they said, ‘Will you talk to the Prime Minister, the Taoiseach?’ I said, ‘Yeah, of course I will’. And he got the same lobby saying, ‘Will you talk to Geldof?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, of course I will’.”
However, that was the end of things. Geldof finished, “So Micheál called me and I said, ‘What would you think about Bob Geldof being the candidate for the Fianna Fail party?’ ‘I think it would be great,’ he said, ‘But I’ve already chosen someone’. I said, ‘That’s the end of the conversation Taoiseach, thanks very much’. And that was it.”
Though he noted that he would not have had the time and energy to invest in the project, as “My kids are here, my missus is here, my homes are here, I’d miss London, the band is here. I wouldn’t be able to play. However, the possibility had piqued his interest. “Would it be interesting? Yes, up to a point, though.”
Earlier this year, the star called out President Donald Trump in a speech at the 40-year Live Aid celebration and album launch at Wembley Stadium. Geldof said: “We couldn’t possibly have known that 40 years down the track that the world has to deal with Gaza, Ukraine and Trump, and all that evil, and accept that in Sudan itself millions of children are being forced to starve.”
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